The Significance of the Lord's Supper

As a young man, I often sat in church and participated in the Lord's Supper without truly grasping the meaning behind this sacred sacrament. In those earlier years, I am sad to confess that communion only meant three things to me. First, it was an opportunity to get out of my seat and move around. This was much better than staying in my seat bored to death. Second, I got to take a sip of wine without sneaking around or getting in trouble. And, third, it was an indication that church was ten minutes from being over. Soon, I would be outside playing with my friends on the nearest ball field.

Today, I am happy to confess that I have a much deeper understanding about the Lord's Supper. Communion is a holy meals that profiles the relationship of the Christian church to a Triune God and is also a means by which God is experienced as Father, Son, and Spirit. The Lord’s Supper is also a meal in which we celebrate the reign of God and communicate that we are a people who live in this reign.

In John 6:53-58 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."

When Jesus said, “Take and eat; this is my body…Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:26-28), He was not speaking in a cultural vacuum to consign His followers to cannibalism. Rather, His words were intended to lift the listeners from their barren, food-dominated existence to the recognition of the supreme hunger of life that could only be filled by different bread. It was in that very journey under Moses that God had first told them that physical bread had limited sustenance. He wanted to meet a greater hunger. (Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods)

1 Corinthians 10:14-17 says, "14Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf."

The human person is not designed to be alone; we are not wired to live in isolation from one another as spiritual monads or hermits. To be fully human, to live in the joy of all that we are called to be, requires that we are in fellowship with God and with others. This communion with God and others is fundamental to life.

The first and greatest command that Jesus gave in His proclamation of the gospel is to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We turn from autonomy and enter into fellowship with God and one another. Both dimensions of communion—relationship with God and relationship with others—are mediated, made possible, and sustained by Christ Jesus.

When Apostle Paul speaks of the Lord’s Supper as a participation in the blood and body of Christ, he is, in part, stressing that table fellowship is a significant and intimate spiritual event. In the ancient world, to eat with another was considered a spiritual act—a declaration of and a participation in a spiritual relationship.

The complement to our fellowship with Christ is our fellowship with one another. The Lord’s Supper is a rite of reconciliation: Our peace is with Christ and with one another. When we meet, we discern both the presence of the risen Christ, who hosts the meal, and also the body, the community of faith of which we are a part.

The Lord’s Supper, then, is never a solitary and individual event. It is always a meal of community of faith hosted by Christ as an event wherein we both declare and experience the grace that we are at peace with one another (Colossians 3:15).

I hope this blog stirs in you a desire to get your hungers fed by the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, and also a great anticipation to participate in the Lord's Supper--Communion.